Video of the week

Originally posted by Medway Maniac

Originally posted by Medway Maniac

Originally posted by GK.LaserII

Not fantastically exciting but it's the only L II video I could find apart from the stuff on the class website... Shame it's a class thats dying.

Laser 2 was the nicest boat I ever sailed on a three-sail reach, Fireball, 505 and asymmetrics included. Somehow very light and balanced - the video reflects that well. The kite was the nicest symmetric I ever used, set on just the right length pole.
Trouble was, everything bent where and when you didn't want it to! We used a 505 pole, but you couldn't so easily uprate the boom and that telegraph pole of a mast with its diamonds (why?!) and no pre-bend.
The 3000 addresses all those issues, but even though we've kept the kite size moderate and avoided the pitfalls of a lot of assys that can only sail windward-leeward, we've lost that unique feeling of lightness of the L2 on a three-sailer, even if the speed of the 3k is greater. 
But would I go back to handling an L2 symmetric kite to get that feeling back? Probably not, but I'd like to try it on a sorted boat with a proper mast and boom. Maybe a project on an old Laser 3000 - add a D-ring to the mast, couple of clamcleats and fairleads to the gunwale, then an uphaul-downhaul on the mast - but the list is getting longer, and it'd be a shame to spoil an L3k - maybe not, then!

More sofisticated sail controls would be good for the L2, I've put extra blocks on the outhaul and cunningham (Not class legal) so that my Wife can get some purchase. We make sure the Main goes up as tight as poss in light/heavy air. So we manage some decent bend and as yet we haven't bent anything that shouldn't bend even in a force 8 (got caught out and still came in third). 
The L2 ain't a perfect boat by a long measure, particularly in a drift but at £1000 for a good sorted second hand boat  I still reckon on a thrill per £ it's the best out there by a very very long way.
 We geta bit lonely down wind but still manage to get to the mark ahead of most other boats. In the last 2 yrs we are the only symmetric boat racing regularly at the club.... Silver ware on the mantle piece 